By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: June 17, 2013

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Ojai, California — To be perfectly honest, this has been one of the most difficult road tests I have ever had to write. Words, errant though they may be, usually pour out of the Booth cranium faster than my bumbling fingers can type them in. And yet I have stared at this damned keyboard now for almost two days looking for just the right words to enliven your entry into Ferrari’s 458 Spider. Should I go with a Jeremy Clarkson-like rant on the perils of Teutonic/English/Japanese engineering versus Italian artistry? Maybe I should just jump in with a straight-ahead Car and Driver lead, horsepower specs and empirical data a-blazing? Perhaps just a Popular Mechanics listing of all the technological marvels that are a Ferrari?

The problem, in a nutshell, is that there is simply too much to write about. Supercar road tests normally write themselves. Key in on the one particularly phantasmagorical element — be it some aspect of the car’s performance, its incomparable beauty or even some technological tour de force — and paint a picture with it. Through in a couple of historical references, embellish as necessary, and presto, instant road test.

Only I can’t decide which of the many phantasmagorical elements of the Ferrari I am most impressed with. I was sure, for instance, when I first sat in the 458, that the steering wheel — usually a mundane piece of a car’s interior meriting mention only if its leather covering is particularly supple — was the kicker, the differentiator if you will. Just gripping it makes you feel like you’ve somehow mistakenly slipped onto a Formula 1 car.

Truncated with the de rigueur square bottom, what isn’t swathed in the finest glove leather is beautifully laid carbon fibre. It’s festooned with buttonry: a big red Engine Start button, a plain old suspension damping controller and a windshield wiper toggle has been built to look like some sort of steering wheel-mounted lap timer. Hell, even the turn signals have been built into the steering wheel because Ferrari has eliminated the steering stem stalks so it could make the seven-speed dual clutch transmission’s paddle shifter levers larger and closer to the driver’s fingers. If that sounds like an arcane point just a bit too over-the-top for a street car, know this: The 458 is the easiest of paddle shifters to use, gear changes being but a baby finger flick away.

But that’s hardly a reason to key in so obsessively on a steering wheel. For that, we have to go to the manettino — literally “jackknife,” according to Google translate, though I think Ferrari wants it to mean little lever — the 458’s onboard controller that looks like it was liberated from Ferrari’s latest F138 (OK, it’s not quite as resplendent with buttons as Ferrari’s 2013 F1 weapon, but it does emulate its older racers). Never mind that it serves essentially the same purpose as Land Rover’s Terrain Response system, packaging myriad controls — everything from the electronic rear differential settings and the magneto-rheological suspension’s damping settings to throttle response and the exhaust system’s valving, not to mention traction and stability control systems — into one simple, er, little lever. The little anodized toggle looks so darned authentic that you’re magically transported to Fiorano (Ferrari’s test track) and you haven’t even started the car yet.

So, there’s my lead right?

Well, it was. Right up until, well, I started the car. Or, to be perfectly honest, right until I started the car with the roof stowed (a fully automated 14-second pas de deux that is as well choreographed as the rest of the car). Then the triple exhausts are unencumbered by sound-deadening roof, one’s ears now having complete access to 4.5 litres of cross-plane-crankshafted V8.

I’m not sure how Ferrari does it — the romantic in me hopes that there’s some crafty old Italian engineer named Giuseppe deep in Maranello’s catacombs (yet another romantic delusion to be sure) who bends exhaust systems by hand for just the right timbre — but the noise that comes out of those triple pipes is like no other on the planet. It has the ripping silk tonality of Jaguar’s new F-Type V6 S, but with so much more sophistication, the exoticness of an Aston V12 but with heightened aggression and the angry bark of a world-class superbike, only with the melodic syncopation of a V8 replacing the crass beat of a plain ordinary four-cylinder. Punching it to 9,000 rpm is to be Yves Montand in Grand Prix’s Monaco scene, pushing through the tunnel on your way to racing stardom. Resistance is futile. You might as well try keeping your eyes averted at a nude beach full of supermodels.

And that would have been my lead … if I hadn’t done my own Jean-Pierre Sarti impression on California’s diabolically twisty route 33. Out in the twisty boondocks where neither semi trucks nor CHP patrol, it is the 458’s chassis that mesmerizes. Oh sure, a 4.5L V8 spinning to 9,000 rpm is absolutely wondrous, but a lot of supercars — McLaren’s MP4-12C and the Corvette ZR1 to name but two — can trump the Ferrari’s 570 horsepower. Few, perhaps none, can uncurl a twisty road as masterfully.

It’s a quality beyond numbers (which I’m sure many have found lacking in this road test). I am pretty sure that both the aforementioned MP4-12C and ZR1 can generate bigger skid pad g-forces. And I really believe McLaren when it says that its droptop has better chassis rigidity than the Ferrari and has the numbers to prove it. It doesn’t matter, for the 458 has something more difficult to quantify: An almost neural connection with the driver.

Most full-blown supercars, while grippy and incredibly precise, feel a little unwieldly, their girth surprisingly noticeable the tighter the twisties get. Yet, despite, overall dimensions strikingly similar to the MP4-12C (dimensions, performance and emissions are all within millimetres, milliseconds and grams per kilometre of each other), the 458 feels almost Lotus-like from behind the wheel. The steering is all but as delicate as an Elise and the response to commands as quick as an Evora. Indeed, pasting along the Maricopa Highway, it’s easy to mistake the 458 for a lithe Lotus, only with the King Kong of all V8s mounted midship instead of a piddly little V6 or four banger.

Wielding that F1-like steering wheel requires but the gentlest of grips, the steering seemingly effortless, yet incredibly precise. Roll, with the manettino switched to Sport or Race, is almost non-existent and the front tires grip with a tenaciousness that would make even the MP4-12C proud. Traction control (again, with the manettino switched to the lower Sport or Race setting since my ego, admittedly overblown, is in no way deluded enough to make me think that I have a better grasp of the 458’s tractive abilities than Ferrari’s engineers) is sensational. In other words, it’s almost the perfect back-road bandit combining the sheer grip of the McLaren with the responsiveness of a Lotus.

Finally, I think, there’s my story lead. Then as I descend out of the incredibly barren Santa Ynez mountains, the road opens up and I let that screaming 4.5L V8 rip and I am once again thoroughly confused.

The good news is that if I can’t quite decide what I like best about the 458, I can definitely tell you what irked me. And, in each case, they are the flip side of the key attributes I lauded so. Indeed, the price to be paid for the delicate handling I worshipped is that the steering feels nervous when you’re just pottering along. No, the Ferrari never lacks stability (indeed, at speed, it remains remarkably planted) but the steering is so responsive that it sometimes tries diving for apexes even when none are to be found. That light steering, so welcomed in the switchbacks, means that one has to pay a little more attention than normal when just cruising the superslab at a 120 km/h.

Ditto for the throttle response. The immediacy that was so endearing when I was rollicking along the 33 is a little too precious when just cruising the 101. Back off the throttle but slightly and the retardation is a too abrupt, a little like a hybrid on maximum regen. Flipping the manettino to its softest, Wet position (even when the Californian skies are nothing but blue) alleviates some of the hyper-sensitivity, but doesn’t eliminate it.

That said, the 458 Spider is the most complete Ferrari I have ever driven. Foibles, besides the sensitive throttle and steering are few. Indeed, my only other complaint is that the wiper/washer button incorporated into the steering wheel is a little finicky. Otherwise, the 458 was — and I am not sure all the Tifosi will see this as a compliment — as easy to operate as a Toyota. There’s a backup camera — reinforced with proximity sensor and wonderfully musical backing-up chime — to make sure you don’t crush any of the precious bodywork. Sightlines, front and rear, are excellent. The onboard data readouts are easily decipherable, the seats supportive and the radio has Sirius stations. Even that rorty exhaust can be civilized, valves in the exhaust system keeping the cacophony contained when you’re just lolling about.

In other words, just an ordinary car. Only with so many mesmerizing attributes that even the most jaded of auto scribes finds himself unable to decide which will be the justification for raiding his retirement savings.